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Federal Court Voids Texas Voter ID Law

A federal court ruled on Wednesday that the Texas voter identification law is in violation of the Voting Rights Act.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a 9-6 decision that requiring a photo ID in order to vote is somehow racist. Judge Catharina Hayes, a George W. Bush appointee who wrote the majority opinion, stated that the law "has a discriminatory effect on minorities' voting rights in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act" and ordered Texas to fix the law.

Hayes also argued that the law did nothing to stop voter fraud.

"The bill did nothing to combat mail-in ballot fraud, although record evidence shows that the potential and reality of fraud is much greater in the mail-in ballot context than with in-person voting," wrote Hayes.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch celebrated the ruling in a statement.

"This decision affirms our position that Texas's highly restrictive voter ID law abridges the right to vote on account of race or color and orders appropriate relief before yet another election passes," Lynch said.

In 2014, a lower court argued that the law was discriminatory because a disproportionate amount of minorities don't have a valid form of ID. How the law would prevent them from obtaining one has not been addressed.

Judge Edith Jones, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan, wrote in the dissent that mandating a photo ID to vote "is a reasonable requirement widely supported by Texans of all races and members of the public belonging to both political parties" and that calling the law racist "fans the flames of perniciously irresponsible racial name-calling."

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was not happy with the ruling.

"Preventing voter fraud is essential to accurately reflecting the will of Texas voters during elections, and it is unfortunate that this common-sense law, providing protections against fraud, was not upheld in its entirety," Mr. Paxton said.

The whole point of a voter ID law is to uphold the right to vote by ensuring that one's vote is not nullified by a fraudulent vote. As Conservative Review's Daniel Horowitz explains, voter fraud is a real problem:

Texas has about 4.5 million immigrants, including over 1.7 million illegal aliens. According to a 2014 analysis referenced in the Washington Post, more than 14% of all non-citizens in the country are illegally registered to vote. Texas clearly has a vital interest in advancing the simple and reasonable requirement of presenting a valid photo ID in order to protect all U.S. citizens – white, black and anyone else. Only the legislative branch of the federal government, not the courts, was given authority in Article I Section 4 to “alter such regulations” of the states on electoral decisions, and even then, according to Hamilton it was only to be done under “extraordinary circumstances.” The notion that unelected courts can steal the sovereignty of the people and the state concerning the most vital protection of the most sacred tool of democracy would be unfathomable to our Founders.

As we recently noted, a study in the journal Electoral Studies found that noncitizen voting in U.S. elections "has been large enough to change meaningful election outcomes, including Electoral College votes and congressional elections."

In another new report — "Does Your Vote Count?" — the Heritage Foundation documents more than 200 instances of voter fraud around the country.

Just last week, guerrilla filmmaker James O'Keefe filmed himself getting 20 ballots in North Carolina without proper ID or evidence of registration.

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